The aikido seminar on July 27th was well-attended by both university students and adult aikidoka. It was held in a really superb dojo, which sported three full-size judo competition areas. By my recoking, that’s about 20×8-jo, which is quite large.

It was really hot and humid. By the time the morning session had ended, I think that the entire dojo raced to the nearest vending machine for a cold bottle of Pocari Sweat. My judogi was completely saturated before lunch, and the afternoon was even hotter than in the morning. (…)

On the weekend of August 26 & 27, the JAA is holding a training seminar at Kokushikan University (map), which is situated in Tsurukawa, northwest of Yokohama and west of Tokyo. The Sunday session is reserved for instructor training, which means I’m not attending, but I am joining the contingent that’s going for the Saturday [...]

In June, 2006, I headed out for the United States to attend a professional conference in Baltimore, Maryland. I hadn’t been to Baltimore in years, but remembered (correctly, it turns out) that, in addition to the beautiful Inner Harbour area and the expansive convention hall, there’s also quite a rough quarter near the city centre.

Before traveling to the conference, I decided to seek out an aikido venue in which to train whilst there. Finding a venue turned out to be an adventure in and of itself.

Sometimes I really feel as if I live on an airplane. If you’re a die-hard traveler, you’ll be instantly in synch with the concept. If not, imagine being away from home upward of 50% of the time. While I enjoy traveling to new and exotic places, sometimes it gets tiring and dull.

But aikidō has given me a new opportunity: now, before I travel, I look for shōdōkan aikidō venues in which I can train whilst away. This has been fun and, frankly, quite enlightening in a number of ways.

In March 2006, shortly after I joined the YMCA Shodokan aikido club, I received an e-mail saying that there was an “annual [aikido] course” in Skenfrith on 26-29 May 2006 and that there were only a few spots left. But I didn’t really know what I’d gotten myself into.

When I woke up the morning of Wednesday, 8 February 2006, I didn’t have any idea that my life was going to change that day. Well, it wasn’t quite that dramatic. However, it was that evening that I took my first tentative steps onto the tatami to learn a martial art, aikido. I now feel as if everything’s changed for me since then.